Personal TruenamesPersonal truenames represent the precise words in the True Tongue that refer to a particular creature or object. While most Truespeech deals in generalities out of necessity, learning a personal truename allows the unlocking of many special powers.
Your first rank in the Truespeech skill teaches you your own personal truename, but learning more than that takes dedication and a great deal of time. Researching new personal truenames is described in detail below, but the important thing to know right now is that if you know a personal truename and incorporate it into an utterance, the utterance becomes even more powerful. A personal truename never changes, unless an effect specifically says it does – and such effects always come at great cost. Only creatures and objects with an Intelligence score of 3 or higher have personal truenames.
– A creature or object whose personal truename is incorporated into an utterance does not benefit from any immunities, resistances, miss chances, or other defenses that would ordinarily prevent it from being affected or alter the consequences of being affected (even if it isn't the target). Such an utterance is not subject to counterspeech, nor does it require line of sight or line of effect in order to target its target.
– It's very easy to use a personal truename once you have been properly instructed – while it's extraordinarily exacting, the words embed themselves in your mind once you clear the hurdle of learning them in the first place. It's not uncommon for learners to find themselves mouthing bits of personal truenames they know, or humming their unique rhythms, when they aren't saying anything else. What's difficult is incorporating it into other parts of truespeech, which requires you to alter the word and overcome the inertia of its own memorization. Thus, speaking a personal truename as its own Word, as described below, has a DC of only 5. Incorporating it into another utterance, however, increases the DC of that utterance by 6.
– Truespeech's power is derived from its precision, and a personal truename is as precise as the language gets. The power involved with speaking an utterance incorporating a personal truename is therefore greater, and so too is the backlash for failing to channel this power correctly. If you fail a check for an utterance involving a personal truename, you take 1d6 points of damage per point by which you failed, in addition to any other consequences of failure you might suffer. In any case, this damage is not subject to resistances or damage reduction, nor is it healed by regeneration or magical healing effects.
– A personal truename is a powerful utterance in its own right. Each is considered a Word if spoken on its own, and grants you total control over the target. This use of a personal truename gains all the benefits due an utterance incorporating a personal truename, as described above. You can make the check to use a personal truename in this way even if you are untrained. You cannot target yourself with this Word, because the harmonics of your own voice would change as you altered the fundamental nature of yourself, rendering the utterance meaningless even as you spoke it. Failure to make the Truespeech check for this effect causes 1 point of ability burn to every ability score you possess.
The target of this Word is compelled to obey your commands. If you share a language, you can order it to carry out any task with normal speech, using the same action such an order would normally require (typically a free action, though long or complicated orders should take longer to speak), and it will obey to the best of its ability. For instance, you could order a creature to act as though it were madly in love with you (and other creatures could make Sense Motive checks opposed by the target's Bluff check to detect the ruse), but you probably couldn't order it to actually fall madly in love with you (because most creature's can't do that at will). If you do not share a language, commands must be given as a move action, and only very basic commands can be communicated; you can give only commands equivalent to those listed as possible tricks in the Handle Animal skill, though you don't need to make any checks as part of giving the command and the target will attack any sort of creature. A target is completely free to act as long as it doesn't conflict with the letter of your orders, but it cannot knowingly cause you harm. A command the target perceives to be clearly self-destructive allows the target to make a Will saving throw against a DC of the Truespeech check you made to speak this utterance, but it otherwise obeys even commands absolutely opposed to its own nature. This Word has a duration of 1 day.
If you reverse the Word, the target is freed from any mental control, such as that of a dominate person spell. Such effects immediately end as if their durations had expired (even if they were of Permanent duration), and the target is immediately made aware of them, as well as the name, alignment, and approximate location (to within one mile) of the source of that effect. Instantaneous effects can also be undone, returning the target to the state of mind they possessed before the use of that effect (though they retain their memories of events that have since transpired). Any altered memories are restored, but the target also remembers the false memories (and can distinguish between the true memories and the false). You must speak this word once for each instantaneous effect you wish to undo, and you always undo the most recent one that was used on the target. You can even end the effect of the standard use of a personal truename, described in the previous paragraph, if you make a Truespeech check with a DC equal to the Truespeech check of the creature that originally spoke it.
– You can be instructed in a particular personal truename without having ranks in Truespeech, but doing so follows all the normal rules for being taught a Word. For instance, if you learn this word from a book, the book's creator must have succeeded at the appropriate checks to create the book. Whether you are trained in truespeech or not, the check to learn the name is DC 15 (though if you are untrained, this will be an Intelligence check).
Researching a personal truename is no easy task. Most creatures simply aren't well-known enough to have one you can look up, even theoretically. Those that are sufficiently famed are often powerful enough to take protective measures against anybody learning their personal truenames. Complicating matters further is the rarity of trustworthy sources of knowledge – one typical method of protecting a personal truename is to release thousands of copies of a work that revealed it, carefully garbling one's own truename so as to make it a lethal curse on the reader.
Researching a personal truename takes a number of phases equal to ½ the DC (rounded up) to successfully speak an utterance that would target the subject of your research. Use the lowest DC the subject has for at least 1 continuous day during your research; for instance, you could reduce the DC for a magic item by holding onto it to study it for an entire day. You must have access to some kind of laboratory and library for at least half the time you spend researching in order to perform the research at all. The first phase takes 1 day, and each additional phase takes twice as long as the previous phase. At the end of research, you make a Truespeech check with a DC equal to the normal DC required to target the target of your research with an utterance, plus 10. If you succeed, you learn the target's personal truename. If you fail, you may spend another phase of research to keep looking for the answer – you get a +2 bonus on your next check, and may try again. You can keep trying until you succeed, provided you have the time.
You can make use of various additional resources and methods of research to accelerate the process. These methods vary widely. Some common methods are utilizing an especially well-equipped library, tracking down another researcher working on the same problem, translating an ancient text, or even negotiating with a knowledgeable creature. In any case, a typical acceleration method requires an investment of gold of around 2000 gp, as well as a skill check with a DC of around 30, or an ability check with a DC of around 25. Determining the authenticity of documents, if necessary, requires at least a DC 25 Forgery check. Success at a method indicates that you reduce the number of phases of research you must spend by 1. You can also increase the number of phases you save by 1, by doubling the GP cost and increasing the check DC by 4. It's usually worthwhile to pursue multiple avenues of research, particularly because the sum total of all your research acceleration cannot exceed twice the GP limit of your community (DMG 137). Your DM is always the final judge of whether a particular method can feasibly accelerate research, and may limit the total number of methods you can employ. Some truly rare exceptions might reveal a personal truename directly, but these can't be quantified within the standard rules, and these methods will almost always come at a tremendous personal cost or require a quest to locate the source.
If the DC to speak the target's general truename is 15 or lower, you cannot guarantee that any method to accelerate the research will work, since the target is so obscure that you'll have to do all the work yourself. Unless special circumstances arise, you cannot reduce the number of phases of research you must perform. If the DC is 35 or higher, the name is one popularly quested after, and conflicting research and deliberate obfuscation have made it all but impossible to discern the truth – you must attempt at least 1 method for accelerating research, but this method only allows you to complete the research, and does not actually accelerate it. You require an additional method of acceleration, or a higher degree of a method you have already chosen to employ, for every additional 10 by which the DC increases. Additional methods may be employed to accelerate the process as normal, including employing the method you've already used to an even greater degree.
Jellisqua is attempting to learn the personal truename of a legendary sword that sheathes its wielder in a protective aura. The item is intelligent, and its dedication to exterminating evil means that it refuses to help her, believing that she squanders her talents chasing after knowledge instead of hunting down the unrighteous. She risks carrying the sword for an entire day, attuning herself to its mind while she begins her research - she manages to make the Ego check, which is excellent, since the sword would likely have forced her to destroy her research materials and pursue some sacred quest. The sword was created by a 13th level spellcaster, and has a Charisma score of 14, but she is the item's current owner (and is obviously willing to allow research to go forward). Thus, the DC to target it would be 15, +13 for the caster level, +2 for the item's Charisma, +2 because it is a masterwork weapon (as are all magic weapons), -4 because of a willing owner, -2 because the item was held, for a total of 26.
The research will take 13 phases, or a little under 45 years. She's an elf, so she could feasibly spend that much time, but it seems a bit much for a minor benefit. She decides to find an ancient tome before she begins, so that she can decipher it during her research to speed things along. She spends 8000 gp to buy the book from an eccentric wizard in a small city, who collects such oddities, and gets to work. She makes a DC 38 Decipher Script check and a DC 25 Forgery check to translate the tome and verify its authenticity, and it turns out to be genuinely useful, and saves her 3 phases of research. She also visits a well-stocked church library and donates 2000 gp; in exchange they allow her access to ancient histories and other tomes not normally available to the public, from which she gleans key information regarding the sword's history as a religious icon with a DC 30 Knowledge (religion) check, saving her a phase of research. 9 phases of research comes to nearly 3 years, but she's willing to spend that to secure her prize.
Meanwhile, a rival warlock of fairly dull intelligence decides to steal her sword and, by sacrificing an item of holy power, gain favor with a powerful fiend. He's comfortable consorting with such creatures, so he summons a Harvester Devil. Since he's already fairly certain his soul is damned anyway, he agrees to the Devil's terms; he swears his soul to the creature's possession upon his death and that he will forever obey Hell's decrees regarding the use of this particular truename. He also pays a hefty amount of gold for the privilege, but in the end the Harvester Devil reveals to him a Logokron who knows the truename he's after and arranges a satisfactory payment to that Logokron on the warlock's behalf. The warlock uses the word to gain command of the weapon, but because it is locked in a box by this point and is wholly inanimate, it cannot obey his commands to come to him. Long before Jellisqua finishes her research and unseals the blade, the warlock is slain by the angered Marilith to whom his soul would have belonged had he not sworn it to Hell. The warlock's control expires, and the blade never speaks to Jellisqua of the voice that whispered evil instructions to it for so many weeks (even as it finds itself bound to obey her own commands, which are at least far more tolerable).
